Tourists in Middle East Face Uncertain Journey

When the World Trade Center towers came crashing down last week, Brentwood attorney Victor Antola was out of harm’s way. He and family members were on a plane to Beirut, beginning a vacation.

Four days later, Antola and his wife, Iris, along with daughter Jessica, 27, and son Christopher, 25, were still in Lebanon, grieving and watching a lot of CNN. And yet, like scores of Americans who were touring rarely visited Muslim nations when the crisis erupted, they are facing the decision of whether to stick to their original itinerary. So far, they are keeping to their three weeks in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.

“As we’re talking, I’m looking out at a jetty with two men fishing on the Mediterranean,” said Antola, who spoke Saturday morning by telephone from his hotel in Byblos, Lebanon.

“You almost feel safer here than you would be in L.A. or New York,” Antola said. And he said the Lebanese have gone out of their way to express sympathy to his family for the loss of American lives in the recent terrorist attacks.

The Antolas aren’t the only Americans to find themselves in the middle of trips to Middle Eastern and Muslim countries that were labeled dangerous by the U.S. State Department even before Tuesday’s tragedies.

The family’s choice so far to stay is not that of every traveler who may fear escalating tensions should the United States and its allies retaliate against terrorists possibly hiding in the region.

On Saturday, visitors and their travel agents reported no visible problems, although some travelers already are taking precautions by changing routes or canceling reservations. A strongly worded update from the State Department could hasten an exodus.

At Geographic Expeditions, a San Francisco-based tour operator, President Jim Sano said he had 42 American travelers on escorted tours in Iran last week. By Saturday, he had shifted all but two to other nations, mainly Turkey, because, he explained, confidence in some countries “is decreasing.”

Geographic Expeditions also has three dozen more tourists on Silk Road itineraries that were intended, until Tuesday, to wind up in Pakistan, Sano said. The travelers are being rerouted to China, and will fly home from Beijing, Sano said.

“They’re not reporting any problems at this time. In fact, the general reception from people they’re meeting along the way is sympathy and concern for Americans,” Sano said of travelers in such countries as Kyrgyzstan.

Among travelers with upcoming departure dates, Sano said, responses have been varied. So far, he said, cancellations on trips to Muslim countries--including Turkey, Iran and Morocco--amount to 15% to 18% of the travelers holding such reservations.

Added Sano: “I suspect there will be more as people think about it and family members talk to them and say, ‘Do you really want to travel now?’ [But] a lot will be dependent upon what the U.S. response is.”

During the Persian Gulf War, Sano said, travel to the Muslim world all but ceased, and visits to Europe and Africa dropped sharply as well.

Americans have been frequent visitors for years to such Muslim countries as Turkey and Egypt. But in the last four years, Lebanon has been struggling to regain some of its past glory as a beach resort and archeology showcase, and Saudi Arabia and Iran have been quietly opening to international tourists as well.

Three California tour operators report that hundreds of Americans are holding air reservations to visit Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iran in coming weeks, and hundreds were lined up behind them.

For more than a decade, the State Department has warned U.S. citizens about travel to Iran and Lebanon but has stopped short of banning such trips.

There is no such warning for Saudi Arabia. As of late Saturday, the State Department had offered no new safety advice to U.S. civilians in the Middle East or Muslim countries.

The Antola family stopped for lunch Friday at a “hole-in-the-wall” restaurant in the Bekaa Valley, an area known for its archeological treasures and reputation as a stronghold of the militantly anti-Israeli Hezbollah movement.

The family was drawn to the area because of the archeological ruins and history.

When the Antolas entered the restaurant, Victor Antola said, the owner, Mohammed, rushed to offer condolences in French and English for the attack deaths.

And as they were finishing their meal, Antola said, the restaurant owner returned with a business card bearing a hand-printed note: “Dear USA people. Because we are all brothers in humanity, I feel so sorry about this global tragedy. Let us pray for peace.”

“This,” said Antola, “is so typical of what we’re getting. It just brought tears to my [eyes.]”